The present invention relates generally to drawer slides, and more specifically to undermount drawer slides.
Drawer slides are ubiquitous in cabinets, cabinet type structures, and rack mounted applications. Drawer slides are often used to extensibly attach drawers and the like to cabinets, with extension of the drawer from the cabinet allowing for easy access to the contents of the drawers. In general, drawer slides are useful in providing extensible attachment of items to structures.
There are a number of types of drawer slides. The types of drawer slides include telescopic drawers slides, in which the rails making up the drawer slide are nested within one another and extend in a telescopic manner, over and under drawer slides, in which one rail is positioned over another rail, and side by side drawer slides, in which the rails are placed next to each other.
Another type of drawer slide is an undermount drawer slide. Undermount drawer slides are adapted to be placed under a drawer or the like. This is unlike the general use of other types of slides, which are often mounted to the sides of a drawer or item. Placement under a drawer or item may be convenient in that in use the slides generally remain hidden underneath the drawer when extended. Being placed directly under a drawer or other extensibly mounted item, however, raises design issues. The load bearing characteristics are different than, for example, a telescopic drawer slide mounted on the sides of a drawer, particularly when a heavy drawer is extended.
In addition, in many applications the cabinet or other supporting structure is not adapted to bear loads on structural elements directly under the drawer. Instead, the cabinet or supporting structure is adapted to bear load along its side walls or a frame attached to, or part of, the side walls. In such circumstances, some means is generally required to extend from the undermount drawer slide underneath the drawer out to the side walls. Such a means allows mounting of the undermount drawer slide to the side of the cabinet. The means, however, further complicates design of the undermount drawer slide, as the means must transfer the load of the drawer to the side wall, which may be some distance from other portions of the undermount drawer slide.